Ben Trovato
by Mr Mojo is Risin
Summary: Who does, indeed, break a butterfly upon a wheel?


**Okay, here's the deal. I'm writing two new fics of the same s/l. One's a one-shot (this one, here!) and the second's a multi-part fic of the same plot, but goes into greater deal and is more of an actual story rather than an overview of it, like the one-short. So let's just say one a short version, one's a very long version because it'll have numerous chapters. Anyway, it's rather sad so just letting you know beforehand if you cry at everything, like me! Anyway, hope you like it!**

* * *

**The Truth Can Burn Us Alive  
**One-Shot by Slaying the Dreamer

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Chuck Bass wakes up one morning satisfied because he knows that Blair Waldorf is sleeping beside him. She looks perfectly fragile; faultlessly delicate and it's the only time he can say such a thing without her directing an epidemic of hostile comments. She asleep and can't hear a word to say anything against it and that makes Chuck smirk because he knows that there's another innocent side to Blair. Even under the aloof façade, past the emotively sensitive core, he knows that she loves him too much to ever let him go again.

'Don't be ridiculous, Bass,' he could imagine her saying. 'I'm not delicate or whatever crap you think I am.'

But he knows she doesn't mean it because she couldn't bring herself to mean anything like that. It's true. She's sensitive and she's an unruly storm of emotions, but she's passionately strong and strongly passionate. She's been through so much that it's a rare occasion he's seen her break. But he knows that as cold, as frigid, as she could be, he loves her and she loves him and nothing could break that bond only the two of them possess.

* * *

Another morning, Chuck wakes up to a brewing storm and it reminds him of his long-term girlfriend and her uncontrollable emotions. The sky is the colour of slate and the clouds are lined with inky black. The rain falls from high above and he smiles at how inevitable it is. How Blair-like it is. Then out of the blue (or grey, in this case) comes a strike of thunder and a flash of lightning, an insolent electrical current that looked like nothing more than a child's nightlight if put against Blair's passion for the things she believes in. But the day isn't as beautiful as the storm outside, because the tempest to come was much more intense and fierce than the one outside could ever be. Chuck and Blair argued and it concluded in tears and drama and an excessive intake of alcohol and drugs. Blair could make Chuck do virtually anything. Change him from the happiest man on earth to a depressed, drug-taker who relied on scotch and misery to make him content again. He could already see the shadows of his old-self seeping through the smokescreen concealment he had soon got used to. The person he was before he fell in love with Blair and she fell in love with him. And when he hears Blair sobbing in their locked bedroom door, he wishes nothing more than to go back in time to the brighter, sunnier days.

Things improve slowly but surely, especially when Chuck awakens to the cadence of rain on the penthouse rooftop. He looks out of the apartment windows to see New York lost in a haze of mist and raindrops. The thunder has faded and the lightning's electrical fields were doused, but things still are flawed. Blair sleeps in the same bed as him now, but not by his side like she used to do. He can no longer feel her warm breath on his bare chest, because the distance between the two of them is the size of the Atlantic now. Well, to him anyway.

And they help him; they want to help him. They're no therapists but they do all they can. Nate, Jenny, Lily, Eric, Dan, Serena. They're family and friends, but they have their own lives and relationships to live and love; not fitting together the puzzle pieces of Blair and Chuck's abating relationship.

* * *

And then the fog comes. It's better than the rain and it's improved a hell of a lot compared to the storm just a few weeks ago, but he's still willing the sun to come back and warm their cold hands. They've effectively fixed their relationship and he's considering a proposal because he loves Blair and will love her for all of forever, but it's about time when he's searching for an engagement ring when he's called off on a business trip with Bass Industries. He doesn't want to go; doesn't want to leave Blair and their delicate relationship behind, but she tells him to leave as long as he's not gone for long. Three days into the course and just two before he returns home, Blair rings and complains of severe headaches, radical weight loss, nausea and excessive dizziness. At first, he thinks it's fever and nothing else. He tells her to rest and he'll make sure he comes home early, but he begins to worry when he sees Blair for the first time since his arrival home. She doesn't greet him at the airport like she used to; instead it's Nate and Jenny and their eyes are dark with worry and Nate tells him to go to Blair because she needs him more than ever. He sees Blair and she's thin and paler than her already naturally pallid complexion. She's shaking from dizziness and the fact that the doctor's have had to take tests. And he's angry at her for not telling him, for bottling it up, but the anger seeps into concern when he realizes that she's serious; that this whole condition is serious. That this situation is serious.

* * *

And he doesn't wake to rain or shine; sun, storm, drizzle or fog beause he can't sleep at night anymore. His mind is plagued with an endemic of constant worry, especially when Blair is called in to hospital. The doctors tell him first, tell him before they tell Blair that they've found something that could be classed as dangerous. That's when he knows it's serious.

"We've discovered a growing tumour in the stomach," the doctor stated soberly, gravely. "Blair will have to undergo chemotherapy in an attempt to shrink it."

He doesn't listen to the rest; it's all medical argot. All he cares about is Blair - _his _Blair - who is lying critically ill in hospital all because of some cancerous tumour. And he doesn't say anything till he's alone at their penthouse. He yells and curses and shouts before breaking down and crying into the ground, his salty tears remind him of the rain when he thought things were getting better.

Chuck Bass, the man who was void of emotion, is crying.

The things Blair makes him do.

* * *

And they try to help but they have their own lives to live so Chuck relies on the scotch and drugs to keep him company. He ignores the incessant phone calls, voice mails and messages. He ends up throwing his cell against the wall when Gossip Girl flashes the news of Blair's treatment. He ignores the knocks on the door because he knows that they know Blair and that brings back unwanted memories. Sometime later, he hears that Blair's illness has got worse and the doctors are performing radiotherapy in an attempt to stop the tumour from growing any larger. It won't shrink it, but they're desperate and he's desperate for his scotch and drugs and loneliness.

He tries not to care because seeing Blair would just kill him. Physically, mentally and emotionally.

And he's already died enough - more than Blair has. It isn't until Jenny begs him to see her, saying its Blair's only wish, only desire. And then he sets foot in the hospital - the whitewashed hellhole - with only one intention. Before he leaves, he tells Jenny to wait and rushes into his and Blair's bedroom, raking through the drawers of clothing and love letters from the past in search of a tiny, velvet box. A box that's stayed a secret. A box that he only just remembered existed. And when Jenny asks what he was doing, he just waves it off. This can be his and Blair's secret now.

It takes all the strength he has to not turn away as he enters Blair's ward and then her room. It takes all his strength to not punch every person in the room in an attempt to vent his anger at the cancerous murderer inside of her. It takes all his strength to not cry again because Chuck Bass doesn't cry for anyone. Except Blair because Blair can make him do anything. She could tell him to jump off a cliff and he would do it. Because he trusts Blair and he loves her more than anything and he can't face losing the only reason he has to live.

Jenny gives him a reassuring smile before returning to the waiting room outside where their family and friends are. The doctors then vanish one by one until it's just Chuck Bass and his Blair.

He stands beside her, watching her, until she stirs. It breaks his heart when she stares at him blankly for a split second before evoking reminiscences of who he was, and no one but Blair could break his heart, especially with just one look. No one could break his heart, but Blair just did.

"Chuck," her voice is dry, cracked and tears swim her eyes, making her brown irises appear innocent and beautiful and perfect all at once.

"Blair," he whispers too because he's scared that any sound will shatter the perfection of this moment. "There's something I have to ask you."And she waits for him to ask, the familiar impatience in her eyes warms his broken heart a little because he knows it's still Blair, underneath the compilation of tubes and wires and all things that remind him of hospitals. Of Hell. It's still Blair because she has her Blair-traits and her Blair-love for him, he can see it in her eyes, the only part of her that resembles the person she once was.

He holds out the velvet box and he watches as the Blair he knows and loves looks at the ring and then smiles, knowing she has a happily ever after despite her current state. She doesn't say anything but she nods, so passionately that Chuck wonders if she really is ill. He slips the silver, diamond studded ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand and watches as her eyes light up and not from the glimmering reflection of the jewels. She admires it and Chuck admires her. The dark cloud seems to lift for both of them.

* * *

They wed days later because Chuck knows at the back of his heart that they haven't got the forever he always wanted anymore. They wed in the hospital. There was no extravagant location, no beautiful church or tropical beach. There was no wedding gifts because they didn't need them, they had each other. There was no luxury wedding reception, no honeymoon. Not even a wedding dress or veil that Chuck once pictured Blair in. Just rings, witnesses, a minister and each other. And the whole time, Chuck was worried that it was too late to even tie the knot, because Blair's condition was deteriorating. He wanted to be able to look at his wife and know that she was looking back at her husband.

The minister stood bedside and skipped out most of his speech because there was no time for a whole recitation of the Bible.

"Charles, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as you both shall live?"

He felt the eyes of the witnesses - just close friends and family - bore into his but he kept his eyes only on his fiancée before repeating the most important words of his life. "I do."

The minister turns to Blair. Looked down at her fragile, but desperate to live through the most important ceremony of her life.

"Blair, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him; so long as you both shall live?"

Chuck closed his eyes tightly, listening out for the 'I do', still as harmonious as ever. "I do."

The minister commanded them to repeat what he says, as he held the Holy Bible out in front of him.

"I Charles take thee Blair to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth."

This was the part that Chuck was dreading. He prayed silently, begging God that Blair will have time to say all she needed to say so they could become man and voice, barely a whisper, "I Blair take thee Charles to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth."

The minister spoke, "With this ring I thee wed: In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Bless, O Lord, this ring, that he who gives it and she who wears it may abide in thy peace, and continue in they favour, unto their life's end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Chuck took the wedding ring and placed it on the fourth finger of Blair's left hand. He met her eyes; burning affection, sincerity and love.

"Let us pray," the minister joined their hands together.

Chuck briefly forgot about everything he ever knew; didn't listen to the rest of the minister's recitations. He just stared intently into Blair's warm brown eyes. She stared at him, apparently entranced, too.

"You may kiss the bride."

And as he lowered his lips to hers, he never felt happier.

* * *

She was gone just two days later. Two days of becoming the wife she had always wanted to be. Two days of becoming his wife, two days of him becoming her husband. She was gone; she had caved in to the illness. And Chuck Bass had died along with her; his already splintered heart was cremetated till it was nothing more ashes.

When he wakes up the next morning, he would have awoken to rain and storm and fog and sun like all the other days except he doesn't wake up at all. He decides that he didn't want to wake up without his Blair.

And now, he finally has his eternity with her. The eternity they had always wanted.

* * *

**AN: What did you think? Did you like it? It was inspired by various movies, TV shows and other great fanfictions on here. Look out for the multi-part fic that should be coming reasonably soon. Anyway, please rate and review and let me know what you think. I don't know when the multi-part fic will be up because I've only just begun writing the intro/Chapter 1, so there might be a wait, but I'll try and get it done as quickly as possible. Anyway, hope you like this one-shot!**

**:-)**

**xoxo  
Slaying the Dreamer**


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